Author: derek51b1dbe657

The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at:  https://rabble.ca/podcast/brampton-auto-plant-the-first-to-close/

Top stories on our Canadian French- and English-language pages this week included lots about tariffs and the impact the trade war is already having on Canadian workers, what our governments are not doing to cushion the blows.

On the weirdly-fascinating side of things this week is a lovely inside look at the ‘union avoidance’ campaign that Amazon used against Unifor and the workers at its facility in BC, thanks to Jacobin.

You know the warehouse I’m talking about?  The one where the workers recently won a union in part because of exactly the tactics that the company’s own documents spell out in some detail.

If the subject grabs you, see if your local public library has a copy of Marty Levitt’s memoir ‘Confessions of a Union Buster’.  Leavitt was a hugely, massively successful union buster in the US who, after he got sober with some assistance from a twelve-step programme, made amends for his behaviour when drinking by exposing the ‘union avoidance industry’ down there.  I read it when working as an organizer and it was fascinating and useful.

From what I can see while some of the delivery methods are new, like social media, the fundamentals of union busting remain pretty much the same.

One other Amazon story made our site this week.  That was the news that, facing organizing pressure from several unions including Unifor, the company this week raised wages by a loonie an hour.

Other stories our volunteers found and posted were about the spectacular, in terms of participation as well as outcome, strike vote by CUPE healthcare members in Saskatchewan, as well as a really interesting piece from Justice for Truck Drivers about their campaign to be converted from independent contractors to employees.

Justice for Truckers is just the most recent example of workers forming what is in effect a union, despite being denied access to the processes and protections of labour legislation.  

This week’s international story of note came from Bangladesh and Pakistan by way of stock markets around the world.  

Following the 2013 Rana Plaza mass industrial murder in which 1134 Bangladeshi garment workers died, two global unions, IndustriALL and UNI, negoitiated the so-called International Accord.  The Accord is meant to improve health and safety by pushing the global brands that contract with factories across Bangladesh and Pakistan to require a set of minimum standards.  When it came into effect 43 brands and retail chains signed-on.

This week the number of garment brands and retailers that have signed the Accord reached 300. The legally binding agreement on worker health and safety across textile and garment factories now covers over 3.4 million workers across 2,000 factories in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included… nothing.  We didn’t pick up a single story from Canada. 

If you see a union or union-friendly news item out there, especially one about women workers, do send it along.  Apparently we could use some extra help.

Among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week were a piece from PSAC about mental health challenges for Parks Canada workers and an impressive but straightforward account of the efforts being made by the Immigrant Workers Centre in Montreal to empower non-union, often domestic workers, to take on their health and safety concerns.

LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, came to us from Uruguay where the Workers’ and Employees’ Union of Norteña (SOEN), is fighting to safeguard jobs and secure the future of AB InBev’s Cympay malting plant. The company is demanding job cuts in exchange for reopening the facility which has been closed since March. AB InBev is the world’s largest brewer and the company behind some of the world’s best-known beer brands, including Budweiser, Corona, Stella Artois, and Beck’s.

Podcast-wise we’ve recently posted a short, ten minutes or so, interviews with Mark Bergfeld, Director of Property Services at UNI Europa. 

Our Editor, Eric Lee, chatted with Mark about the two groups of workers represented by UNI Europa’s Property Services department — security guards and cleaners.  Mark explains some of the issues that these workers face and the challenge of organising them into unions.

Worth listening to just for the bit where, when asked about union density in these sectors, Mark threw out the astounding statistic that in Belgium, over 80% of these workers are unionised.  But in other countries, the numbers are much lower.  Canada, sadly, ain’t Belgium or even close to it.

The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:

This week in 1945 in Windsor, Ontario, the United Auto Workers began their historic strike against the Ford Motor Company. It lasts for 99 days and leads to the Rand Formula for union security.

In 1933 a general strike began in the factories in Stratford, Ontario and spreads across the city. Troops and armoured cars were called out.

 Speaking of troops being used to break strikes, in 1912 Vancouver Island coal miners begin what becomes a two-year strike for workplace safety and union recognition. To defeat the miners’ union, the companies bring in strikebreakers and the province calls out the militia.

On a happier note, in 1913 the New Brunswick Federation of Labour was organized at Saint John. That makes it the provincial federation in Canada with the second longest continuous history.

And, finally, this week in 1941 saw the federal government make all strikes in “war industries” illegal. If any worker went on strike contrary to the new regulations, or encouraged or incited others to strike, then they would be liable to a fine of $500 or a year in prison.  Lots did anyway.

This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.

The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at:  https://rabble.ca/podcast/tariffs-unions-and-free-trade-in-north-america/

Top stories on our Canadian French- and English-language pages this week included Labour Day statements from unions, including a particularly good one from NUPGE.  I’m flagging that one because after decades of reading the damn things it isn’t often that I come across one that gets the union juices flowing.

Other stories our volunteers found and posted included a challenging piece from Judy Haiven on the CCU website.  She looks at the positions taken by international unions on the tariff war and concludes that the US sections of those unions are trying to walk a fine line, reflecting memberships that often support the Trump regime’s policies.

My favourite item among our Canadian stories was the news that IAFF local 730 is endorsing candidates in the Victoria municipal election for the first time in its 168-year history.  Though ya gotta wonder what took them so long.

This week’s international story of note came from the European Union.  Workers will demonstrate in Brussels later this month over the ‘EU Inc’ law which risks undercutting national labour rights and starting a race to the bottom across Europe. European unions are calling for real solutions to the problems faced by working people through a strong Quality Jobs Act.

The legislation the labour movement is cranky about would create a parallel EU-wide corporate rulebook which could be used by companies of any size to opt-out of national labour law, collective bargaining structures and worker information, consultation and board-level representation rights.

A corporate exec’s dream in other words.

The reason I selected this international story to summarize today is because next week our federal government is going through an exercise with corporate Canada that promises to produce similar results.

It’s a small world and bad ideas travel real fast.

Over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included the commitment a newly-elected PSAC leader from Cape Breton has made to find ways to further include indigenous women in the union’s decision-making processes. 

Among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week were a really useful, angering and sad piece from The Tyee entitled “Why do workers keep dying on the job?”

We also covered yet another attack on injured workers from the repugnant policy-makers at Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.  I guess that those effers took time away from implementing the AI-induced layoffs of hundreds of frontline WSIB workers to come up with this one.

LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from the US.  Nurses in California and Nevada will walk out for a day next week in solidarity with striking comrades in Chicago. Other nurses in Chicago and in Maine will be organizing information pickets at their workplace. All are employed by Prime Healthcare, all are concerned that the company puts profits before care. 7 nurses have been suspended for speaking out on behalf of patients.

The United Nurses of Alberta might want to take note and start organizing for their own strike.  UNA has a proud strike history that it might want to consider dusting off as Smith’s medicare machinations continue.

Podcast-wise we’ve recently posted a short, ten minutes or less, interview with Chanyoung Heo.  He is leader of a small union in South Korea that represents workers at Kuehne+Nagel, a German-owned logistics company. 

Listen to the podcast to learn more, including about the company’s new manager, imported from Europe, who told the union that he did not feel bound by a collective bargaining agreement which he did not sign.  Yes, really.  He said that.

And last week our pod dropped an interview with Sean Sweeney, the founder and coordinator of Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, a global network of trade unionists who are trying change the way we deal with the global climate crisis.  Instead of failed neo-liberal solutions, TUED is pushing for ‘public pathways’ to confront the climate emergency.

The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events in Canadian labour history:

This week in 1886 The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Saskatchewan Division No. 322,  formed in Medicine Hat. It is the first union chartered in what later becomes Alberta.

In 1916 a second disaster struck the huge cantilever bridge under construction at Quebec City. Another 13 lives were lost in addition to the 75 deaths in the first collapse in 1907. The bridge, completed in 1917, is still standing today.

And in 1991 more than 100,000 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada launched a general strike to defend job security for federal public service workers.

LabourStart is also a campaigning website and we currently have four active online solidarity actions, from Türkiye, Taiwan, the Philippines and from Hong Kong.

The latter just went live today at the request of the International Trade Union Confederation, the Building and Wood Workers’ International, the Education International, the International Federation of Journalists and Hong Kong Labour Rights Monitor.

On 21 August 2026 the High Court of Hong Kong convicted Lee Cheuk-yan of incitement to subversion under the National Security Law (NSL). On 11 September, Lee was given a sentence of seven years. Lee is a founder and leader of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, the largest independent trade union confederation that was forced to disband under the NSL. His only crime has been his courage. Lee has stood up fearlessly for the rights of working people and for democracy. Our message — the message of millions of trade unionists from around the world — could not be clearer: Free Lee Cheuk-yan now.

Look for the prominent links on our main page and click through.  Protest and solidarity messages are prepped and waiting for you.  It’ll take just seconds to add your voice to those of thousands of trade unionists around the world who have already taken action.

This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.

The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at:  https://rabble.ca/podcast/clc-sets-a-workers-agenda-for-canada/

This week the top stories sections on our Canadian French- and English-language pages included what’s becoming a weekly announcement:  Two more CUPE locals in Nova Scotia’s LTC system have joined the expanding provincial strike.  Over thirty care homes are now behind pickets.

Other stories that caught my eye were the national protests organized by SEIU to draw attention to a cleaning company’s enthusiasm for creating toxic workplaces. 

And while there will be questions about whether it goes far enough and the extent to which all affiliates will participate with enthusiasm, the CLC convention this week “adopted a sweeping action plan to rebuild democratic participation, strengthen working-class political power and confront authoritarian politics.”

But my favourite item among our Canadian stories this week and a candidate for Favourite Labour Story of 2026, was about the delivery drivers in Saskatoon who cut to the chase and skipped the whole ‘sign cards, get a vote, get a union legally certified and go through a few months of bargaining’ stages of building a union and went straight to the picket line.  With reason, given their working conditions and abysmal pay.

As their walkout continues the workers are talking to UFCW about formally organizing, which should be a dawdle.

As LabourStart is a global organization I like to highlight at least one non-Canadian story for you.  This week’s is from Ukraine where the ILO is working with the country’s labour movement to build its capacity despite having to do so in wartime conditions.  Both of Ukraine’s central labour bodies, the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine (FPU) and the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (KVPU) are involved.  The program is largely funded by the government of Belgium, thanks to lobbying by Belgian unions.

Over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included more interviews by the mainstream media by striking Nova Scotia care workers, a collection of first impressions by CUPE members attending the 70th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, and the struggles of BC women farmworkers for basics like toilets and lunch rooms, not to mention PPE when pesticides are in use.

That same story popped-up on our health and safety page and newswire along with stories about  a Teamster working as a security guard who was shot during a robbery in London Ontario and why retail unions are livid after a shop worker in Winnipeg was assaulted by an irate customer.

LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is a photo of one of the many creative organizing tactics FECUT, the healthcare workers union in Peru has used in its wildly successfully organizing efforts over the last year or two.

This week we did not publish a new podcast..maybe next week.  However the series of interviews with trade union activists and leaders from around the globe remains available.  Just follow the link on our main page.  For better or for worse, almost all of them are as relevant today as they were when recorded.

The labour movement’s history is what inspires our current struggles and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events.  This week has historically been a big one for Canadian workers.

In 1992 an underground explosion took the lives of 26 miners in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. A public inquiry into the Westray Disaster blamed politicians, managers and bureaucrats for creating “a predictable path to disaster.”

In1972 leaders of the Québec Common Front went to jail for defying back to work laws during the April general strike. More than 300,000 workers participated in work stoppages and occupations that brought the provincial government back to the bargaining table.

In 1940 Emma Goldman, the veteran feminist, labour and anarchist organizer, dies in Toronto. A memorial service was held at the Labour Lyceum on Spadina Avenue. She was later buried with the Haymarket martyrs in Chicago.

This week in 1946 saw the start of a six-week strike by loggers in British Columbia, the first after the achievement of collective bargaining rights during the war. The strike helps set postwar standards by achieving higher wages, shorter hours, and an industry-wide contract.

In 1872 some 1500 workers in Hamilton, Ontario took to the streets under the banners of the Nine Hours movement, to demonstrate for a reduction in working hours.

And now the biggie:  This week in 1919 a general strike in a major city brought thousands of workers out in support of labour rights and social change. Winnipeg came to a standstill in an urban rebellion that exposed the unresolved class conflicts of capitalist democracy in Canada.

There are lots more labour history items like this to be found at the bottom of our Canadian news pages. 

This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.

The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at:  https://rabble.ca/podcast/child-care-radiolabour/

This week the top stories sections on our Canadian French- and English-language pages included the lead-up to the CLC convention in Winnipeg, the AFL’s reaction to the voting doxxing scandal in Alberta, and how employers are using AI to disguise call centres.

But my favourite item, among our Canadian stories at least, is going to seem a bit repetitive.  Because it is.

This week two more CUPE locals at LTC facilities in Nova Scotia joined their sisters on the line.  By my count this means the total now is over 30 locals.  Support from the public, from residents and from residents’ families is strong and growing.  The strike hasn’t been won yet but the state of LTC in the province hasn’t received this kind of sustained public attention in a very long time, if ever.

If you want to follow the story more closely just find a item with a highlighted ‘Nova Scotia’ in the lead and click on it.  You’ll be taken to our Nova Scotia union news pages.

As LabourStart is a global organization I like to highlight at least one non-Canadian story for you.  This week I have to mention two good news stories.  The first, from the BWI, that’s the global union federation for construction and building materials workers, brings the news that globally this years International Workers Memorial Day (as the Day of Mourning is known in many places), set new records for the number of events held and the number of workers attending.

The second is the very, very good news that after 17 before the courts, 14 Turkish women union activists have been acquitted of a grab-bag of nonsense criminal charges that boil down to the Turkish government finding women organizing more than a bit scary.

As it should.

The women and their union credit international solidarity and the attention it focussed on their plight for winning them their acquittals.

Think about that for the eight seconds it will take you to join our two active online actions in solidarity with other union activists in Türkiye.  Follow the links for each from our main page.

Speaking of union women, over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included the heart-warming to labour history buffs news, in the form of a video report from CTV news, that Ontario’s Blyth Festival has begun rehearsals for a play about the Fleck strike. 

The Fleck workers, almost all women, hung in there for five months and won not just their strike but changes to labour laws across the country.  The photo and film records of the walkout are iconic.  80 women facing down five times as many police in riot gear escorting scabs into the plant.  Or trying to.

Sisters of 78 opens on 12 June if you are looking for a reason to visit the Huron Peninsula.  If you have other plans for your summer holidays, spend some time with the strike’s Wikipedia entry.

On our health and safety page and newswire this week was a report from CUPE on the perhaps surprisingly nasty workplace that is the Timmy’s at the Peterborough hospital, and another on what education workers in Saskatchewan are doing to make their workplaces safe.

LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from Rome.  It is one of dozens we could have run this week as workers flooded streets around the world, just not in Norther America, to mark May Day with demand for economic equality and peace.

The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:

This week in 1952 more than 1,000 retail employees, most of them women, began a strike at Dupuis Frères, a major department store in Montréal. It took three months, but support for the new militancy among Catholic unions helped the workers win a collective agreement.

In 1887 British Columbia’s worst mine disaster took 150 lives after an explosion in a deep underground mine at Nanaimo. The casualties included 53 Chinese labourers, whose names were not recorded by the company employing them.

And in 1972 Saskatchewan brought in an Occupational Health (and Safety) Act, the first of its kind in North America. It included the right to information about workplace hazards, to participate in safety decisions and the right to refuse unsafe work.

There are lots more labour history items like this to be found at the bottom of our Canadian news pages. 

This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.

The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at:  https://rabble.ca/podcast/1-increase-in-health-care-spending-could-raise-billions/

First of all, May Day greetings to you all.  Look for coverage of celebrations and demonstrations around the world on, where else, LabourStart.

This week the top stories sections on our Canadian French- and English-language pages included May Day greetings from CUPE that hopefully will be joined by statements from other unions as the day goes on, updates on the strike by CUPOE members working at long-term care facilities across Nova Scotia, and reactions by unions and the CLC to the federal budget update.

Other stories included the release of the CCPA’s report on the state of the labour market in Nova Scotia (not good), the ratification of a first contract for Uber drivers in Victoria after a vote by UFCW members, and the coming strike vote by members of the BCNU.

But my favourite item, among our Canadian stories at least, was Unite-HERE local 40’s demo at the FIFA congress in Vancouver during the run-up to the world Cup.  The rally was meant to highlight the growing gap between the billions generated by the global sporting event and the affordability crisis faced by the workers who make these events possible.

As LabourStart is a global organization I like to highlight at least one non-Canadian story for you.  This week’s is from New Zealand where healthcare workers and school staff formed a solidarity chain to mark May Day.  The chain ran across Wellington, from a school to a hospital in an effort to draw attention to the workers affected when the new conservative government killed-off the New Zealand Pay Equity Act, depriving hundreds of thousands of women workers, many of them working in care and education jobs, of a chance for pay equal to that of male workers.

Speaking of women workers, over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included a WTF story from Nova Scotia (is it just me or is that province often in the labour news these days, and not in a good way) about retro pay calculations for daycare workers.

On our health and safety page and newswire this week were a pile of stories that used the Day of Mourning to highlight ongoing dangers for workers. 

Globally this year’s theme was mental health at work and a highlight for me was a speech by a comrade in Sudbury who spoke at the Day of Mourning event in that Ontario city.  Hip-hop musician and miner Mickey O’Brien shared his story of recovering from addiction and mental health struggles during the Day of Mourning ceremony.  His opening was “I’m lucky I’m still here”.

LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from Istanbul where this week 15 women leaders of KESK, the Turkish public sector union confederation, were finally acquitted of numerous criminal charges dating back 14 years.  The charges related to such nefarious activities as organizing conferences for women workers and advocating for gender equality.

This week we published a new podcast, an interview with

Stirling Smith, a trade union educator who has worked in many countries, and especially in South Asia. He is active now in the Greater Manchester Hazards Centre and he spoke with our editor Eric Lee about the International Labour Organisation’s estimate that 70% of the world’s workforce is now vulnerable to extreme heat.  Stirling ansewers the questions how is this affecting workers and what can unions do?

The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:

This week in 1921 the Communist Party of Canada is founded at a three-day meeting in a barn in Guelph, Ontario. The party was to achieve its greatest influence in the 1930s and 1940s organizing unemployed workers and industrial unions, and in struggles against war and fascism.

In 1919 coal miners in Drumheller, Alberta went on strike for recognition of the One Big Union after they vote overwhelmingly to leave the United Mine Workers of America.

Also in 1919 thousands of workers in Calgary and Edmonton go on strike in solidarity with their Winnipeg counterparts.

And in 1927 under pressure from unions, feminists and social reformers, the House of Commons approves a limited old age pension plan.

There are lots more labour history items like this to be found at the bottom of our Canadian news pages. 

And speaking of inspiration, we are currently campaigning on behalf of the recently arrested leadership of the Turkish Shipbuilding and Maritime, Warehousing and Storage Workers’ Union.  Demanding secure employment, a decent living and trade union rights, and opposing unpaid wages, workplace murders and precarity is not a crime unless you live and work in a country like Türkiye.

The union is asking us all, and I do mean all, to send protest messages.  A message is prepped and waiting for you and in seconds you can join the thousands of workers around the world who are demanding an end to union-busting by the Turkish government. 

This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.

LabourStart Segment Script for RadioLabour Episode of 24-04-2026.

The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at:  https://rabble.ca/podcast/labour-fights-for-25-per-cent-global-minimum-tax/

Top stories on our Canadian French- and English-language pages this week included calls from several unions, including CUPE, Steel and the PSAC, for the federal government to do more to counteract the effects of the tightening USian blockade of Cuba, coverage from the mainstream media of the split in the Posties’ leadership as voting continues on the union’s tentative agreement with Canada Post, and lots of statements from lots of unions about the privatization crisis in the healthcare system.  Those statements all end with the unions calling for the feds to enforce the Canada Health Act.

Other stories our volunteers found and posted were about organizing victories by workers in Alberta and Ontario and announcements from CUPE that more long-term care workers in Nova Scotia are joining the provincial walkout. 

My favourite item among our Canadian stories was from the Steelworkers, a union with a very long, very deep and very profound commitment to international solidarity.  The piece from their website marks the 13^th anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh in which at least 1134 workers died and over 3500 were seriously injured.  The vast majority of the dead and injured were young women employed making clothing for global brands like Loblaws’ Joe Fresh.

Rana Plaza is the largest industrial homicide in modern history.

Steel has been active in holding Canadian brands to account for their role in squeezing every last cent of profit from their suppliers in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nicaragua and other countries where the clothing they sell is made.  Pressing suppliers to minimize costs without regard to the working conditions this generates makes the brands directly responsible for Rana Plaza and for hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries every year.

This week’s international story of note is from the Netherlands where one of LabourStart’s campaigns contributed to a big win for the labour movement there and for union organizer Pawel Rudzki.  

Pawel has been reinstated by a Dutch retail chain with five years worth of back pay and the lives thousands of contract agency workers in the Netherlands have been transformed.  It’s currently our latest top story so it’s easy to find and well worth reading.

Over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included a piece from the picket lines in Nova Scotia where long-term care workers are off the job demanding a living wage and a modicum of respect. 

What most striking about the strike, sorry, I couldn’t resist, is that the workers, almost all of them women, are so committed not just to their strike but to the residents they would normally be caring for.  It must have taken a lot of abuse and a complete lack of respect for them, their work and the patients they care for to push them out onto the street.

Among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week were a number of Day of Mourning statements in the lead-up to the 28^th, ongoing concerns about asbestos exposure in a federal government building in Montreal, and some good news for BC building trades workers dealing with chronic pain.

LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from France where poster-sized photos of Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris on display outside a union office.  Cecile and Jacques are French teachers and union activists who were arbitrarily detained in Iran for nearly four years. After intense campaigning by their union and by Education International, they were released and arrived back in Paris on 8 April 2026.

The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:

This week in 1872 Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald announced a Trade Union Act that legalizes unions. This happens two days after leaders of the Toronto printers, who enjoyed strong public support in their strike for a nine-hour day, were arrested for common conspiracy.

Also in 1872 the first issue of the Ontario Workman appears, with the slogan “The equalization of all elements of society in the social scale should be the true aim of civilization.” The first issue of the paper also publishes an excerpt on “the normal working day” from Karl Marx’s Capital.

In 1974 in a targeted campaign for pay equity, postal workers began a seven-day illegal strike that won women postal code machine operators the same pay as male postal clerks.

And finally, in 1956 more than 1600 delegates attended the founding convention of the Canadian Labour Congress, a merger of the Trades and Labour Congress and the Canadian Congress of Labour. They called for a national health plan, full employment and a guaranteed annual wage.

LabourStart is also a campaigning website and we currently have four active online solidarity actions, two from Türkiye and one each sponsored by unions in Algeria and Malaysia.

Look for the prominent link on our main page and click through.  Protest and solidarity messages are prepped and waiting for you.  It’ll take just seconds to add your voice to those of thousands of trade unionists around the world who have already taken action.This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.

The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at:  https://rabble.ca/podcast/the-unifor-and-steelworkers-fight-back-agenda/

Top stories on our Canadian French- and English-language pages this week included one that is definitely labour news but maybe not in Canada. 

Our volunteers in Mexico are following allegations that a Canadian mining company operating in Mexico has been using an organized crime cartel to back a yellow union over Los Mineros, an independent, militant union whose national president spent years in exile in Canada, with the support of the Steelworkers.

Check out https://miningwatch.ca for too many more examples of how Canadian mining companies are giving us all a bad name around the world.

Other stories our volunteers found and posted were a summary of CUPE’s pitch to a Senate committee on the need for regulation of artificial intelligence, so-called, in Canadian workplaces, and, of course, we had lots of coverage of CUPE’s province-wide long-term care walkout in Nova Scotia.

But as inspiring as the Nova Scotia strike is, my favourite item among our Canadian stories was from Jamaica.  Unlike the Mexico-connected item, this one will perk you up and the Canadian involved is one of the good guys.

It’s from Brock University where Simon Black of the Labour Studies programme there is just back from events marking the Jamaica Household Workers’ Union’s 35th anniversary.  Black has been involved in providing research support to the union for years. 

This week’s international story of note is from the dumpster fire down below where the aptly-named War Department has moved to terminate the bargaining rights of all the unions representing people employed there.

Over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included coverage of Equal Pay Day, which this year fell on 14 April.  The 14^th was when the average Canadian woman finally earned, in 2025 and up to 13 April, as much as the average man did in 2025.

That’s three and a half whole months of work just to earn what men did last year.

Also up on our pages were a piece about an event celebrating the history of union women’s activism in Cornwall Ontario, and an analytical piece from Canadian Dimension on the structure of care work in this country and how dependent we are on migrant workers, the vast majority of them women, to provide that care.

Among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week were more workplace violence stories than we should be seeing, including one from The Pas where an emergency room nurse was punched in the face.

On a slightly more positive note, we’re also starting to see announcements of planned Day of Mourning events right across the country.  The CLC maintains a regularly updated list of them all.  You’ll find it on their website.  Look for and attend an event close to you.

We also covered the reaction of the movement in Ontario to recent changes to the workers compensation system there.  Ontario still has far more workers without WSIB coverage than all other provinces combined; approximately 60% of the 2.5 million Canadian workers without workplace liability insurance are in Ontario.

“This isn’t about resources – it’s a political choice to leave 1.56 million workers without protection, and it’s simply not right,” said Harry Goslin, president of CUPE Local 1750, the Ontario Compensation Employees Union (OCEU).

LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from Lisbon where the CGTP, like unions around the world, has been joining demonstrations in support of an end to the wars in the Middle East.

The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:

 This week in 1872 Toronto printers attracted a massive crowd of 10,000 people to Queen’s Park in support of their strike for the nine-hour day. Union leaders were arrested for conspiracy the next day.

In 1937 more than 5,000 Montreal “midinettes”, most of them French Canadian women, surprised garment factory owners by going on strike for shorter hours and overtime pay. Within weeks they won a victory for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

And in 1903 British Columbia union organizer Frank Rogers, a longshoreman, dies after he is shot while supporting clerical workers on strike against the Canadian Pacific Railway in Vancouver.  If ever you’re in Vancouver be sure and visit his grave in the Mountain View Cemetery.

This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.

The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at:  https://rabble.ca/podcast/the-ontario-government-plans-to-put-police-in-schools/

Top stories on our Canadian French- and English-language pages this week included fears that the federal government’s early retirement push as it reduces the size of the public service is placing pressure on pension plans, denying workers the information they need to make an informed decision about their continued employment and is going to leave behind many fewer public sector workers doing much more work. 

Also amongst our top stories were NUPGE’s Cuba solidarity work, a number of AI-related job security items and of course a few crystal ball pieces that examine the future of the movement’s relationship with the NDP in light of Avi Lewis’ election as federal leader.

Other stories our volunteers found and posted were CUPE’s claim that the employers are driving the federal government’s look at unpaid labour in the airline industry, and a possible strike by long-term care workers, also CUPE, in Nova Scotia.

My favourite item among our Canadian stories was from the moon, sort of.  Inevitably, the Artemis II space mission had some maple syrup aboard.  I suppose we should be grateful that Hanson wasn’t forced to wear a plaid shirt to and from the moon.

But as it turns out, the Quebec supplier of the syrup is an organized workplace and the Steelworkers who produce the stuff have been on strike since the middle of March.

Steel jumped on the story and is managing to grab a fair bit of attention with statements like this one from Steel’s Quebec Director Nicolas Lapierre:

The “workers are not asking for the moon. They are asking for respect”.

This week’s international story of note is from Hong Kong where the China-imposed National Security Law continues to constrain trade union activism.  The continuing imprisonment of trade union leaders like Lee Cheuk-yan is just the tip of the iceberg.

Sweeping changes to the Trade Unions Ordinance, the law governing unions in the territory, have recently resulted in the de-registration of the Professional Teachers Union after 50 years of militant organizing.  Fully 10% of Hong Kong’s unions have been de-registered since 2021.  As well, the registration of new unions continues to decline year after year as the national security noose tightens.

Over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included coverage of the first Women of Steel conference since the union elected Roxanne Brown as its first women international president.

And we had a really disturbing piece from the FIQ, Quebec’s nursing union, about the impact on its members, who are still mostly women, of Bill 28.  The Bill, which recently gained royal assent, excludes healthcare, social services and education, all predominantly female workplaces, from important provisions of Quebec’s health and safety laws.

The FIQ has joined with other unions to mount a constitutional challenge to the law.  It’s important to note that the FIQ, like all nurses unions in Canada, is deeply concerned by increasing levels of violence in healthcare workplaces.

Among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week was some mainstream media coverage of the safety concerns expressed by SEIU members who clean BC’s Skytrains.  Just as scary a workplace is the federal government building in Montreal where a member of the Association of Justice Counsel recently fell ill as a result of asbestos exposure.

LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from the Philippines the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) is actively campaigning for a ₱1,200 national minimum wage to address the rising cost of living and stagnant wages.

The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:

In 1980 the Canadian Farmworkers Union held its founding convention at Douglas College in Vancouver. Delegates elected Raj Chouhan as president of the CFU, Canada’s first union of agricultural workers.

In 1937 In Oshawa, Ontario, 4,000 workers went on strike at the General Motors plant for recognition of the United Auto Workers. They won major concessions, and the strike is often considered the birth of industrial unionism in Canada.

And in 1983 a tractor trailer drove through a picket line at a strikebound Alcan plant in Scarborough, Ontario, causing the death of Claude Dougdeen, 51, a Trinidad immigrant and father of seven. Outraged union leaders unsuccessfully called on the province to bring in anti-scab laws.

LabourStart is also a campaigning website and one of our active campaigns is in solidarity with Algerian trade unionist Ali Mammeri, President of the National Union of Public Service Employees in the Culture and Arts Sector (SNFC).  He has just been sentenced to ten years in prison in a case directly linked to his union activities.  This campaign is sponsored by his union, and by the global union federations PSI, that’s the Public Services International, and the IUF or International Union of Foodworkers.

UN officials have expressed concern about his case, highlighting violations of fundamental freedoms and the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation against trade union rights.

Look for the prominent link on our main page and click through.  Protest and solidarity messages are prepped and waiting for you.  It’ll take just seconds to add your voice to the demand for Mammeri’s release.

This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.

The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at:  https://rabble.ca/podcast/the-five-ndp-leadership-candidates-tell-why-theyre-running/

Top stories on our Canadian French- and English-language pages this week included the news that the CUPW national executive has split on the ratification of the tentative agreement the union negotiated with Canada Post.  The split became very public this week when the Posties’s National President, Jean Simpson, released a letter urging members to vote no in the coming ratification vote.

Other stories our volunteers found and posted were a call from the CLC for major and overdue revisions to the federal Employment Equity Act, panicking items from the mainstream media in Nova Scotia as CUPE prepares for a province-wide strike in long-term care, and the Manitoba movement’s response to the NDP government’s budget.

My favourite item among our Canadian stories was from the Steelworkers and it wasn’t so much a news item as an invitation to us all, or at least all of us in or near Toronto, to attend the fortieth anniversary of the union’s Humanity Fund.  After an afternoon of reflection on the SHF’s history, its role within the labour movement to date, and the future of international solidarity, there’s a dinner followed by a party.  It’s all happening on 26 June.  There’s an RSVP form for tickets on the Steelworkers website or you can click through from the story on LabourStart.

This week’s stand-out news item from abroad comes to us from Hong Kong where the imprisoned former General-Secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, Lee Cheuk-yan, appeared in court last week.  He pled not guilty to inciting subversion under Hong Kong’s national security law, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.  Lee has already spent almost five years in prison.

Over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included the rollout of CUPE’s new Women in Leadership Development programme or WILD, a piece from the International Federation of Journalists exposing the harassment by white nationalists of Rachel Gilmore, a Canadian journo whose work has put the Frontenac Active Club in Montreal under the microscope.  And we carried a few stories about the toxic workplace experienced by women working for the Canadian Border Services Agency.

Among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week was an item from PSAC, which last week released a report calling for more and improved rehabilitation programmes in Canadian prisons as a way of, among other good things, improving the health and safety of prison staff, statements from a number of unions regarding the death of two Jazz workers in New York, and an attempt by the Coke bottler in Alberta to fire an injured worker who had a long history of complaining to management about the machine that eventually almost killed him

LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from Switzerland where the labour movement is mobilizing to resist a huge cut to that country’s federal budget, despite a substantial budget surplus for this year.

The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:

This week in 2006 an accounting instructor died from injuries received on the picket line at Centennial College in Toronto during a province-wide strike. John Stammers, 62, was a member of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.

And in 1912 thousands of workers started to walk out of railway construction camps on the Fraser River in British Columbia in a strike led by the Industrial Workers of the World. When Joe Hill visits, he writes a song about the strike for the Wobbly song book.

LabourStart is also a campaigning website.  One of our active campaigns is in solidarity with Algerian trade unionist Ali Mammeri, President of the National Union of Public Service Employees in the Culture and Arts Sector (SNFC).  He has just been sentenced to ten years in prison in a case directly linked to his union activities.  This campaign is sponsored by his union, and by the global union federations PSI, that’s the Public Services International, and the IUF or International Union of Foodworkers.

UN officials have expressed concern about his case, highlighting violations of fundamental freedoms and the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation against trade union rights.

Look for the prominent link on our main page and click through.  Protest and solidarity messages are prepped and waiting for you.  It’ll take just seconds to add your voice to the demand for Mammeri’s release.

This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.

The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at:  https://rabble.ca/podcast/amazon-workers-win-million-dollars-in-back-wages/

Top stories on our Canadian French- and English-language pages this week included a scary piece from CUPE which lays out the huge impact immigration cuts are having on already stressed service sectors like childcare.

2.3 million migrants working in Canada, largely in service and care positions, are about to lose their work visas.

You heard right.  2.3 million.

Calling this policy an own goal or a self-inflicted wound understates what’s happening.  Over 2 million workers are going to be forced out of their jobs and out of the country some of them have been living in for decades.

And much, most of the important work they have been doing, from taking care of our kids and our elders to growing our food just isn’t going to get done.

Look for a wave of privatization and a contraction in public services as the impact of this unutterably stupid policy works its way through the labour market.  A lack of available workers will be the excuse.

As I said, an own-goal.

Other stories our volunteers found and posted were a profile of Labour for Palestine from Press Progress, a celebration of the work of CUPE members at the National Fil;m Board as the NFB added to its Oscars collection last Sunday, and the many ways in which many unions have panned the latest Saskatchewan budget.

My favourite item among our Canadian stories was from Windsor Ontario where local Unifor leadership has provided a review of the federal Tories plan for the auto sector.

This week’s international story of note is from the US.  The exposure of United Farmworkers founder Ceasar Chavez’s long history of sexual assault has been devastating for USian Latinx people, the USian labour movement and for trade unionists outside the US who admired the UFW’s organizing successes in a wildly hostile environment and may even have participated in a small way by joining the grape boycotts.

Over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included some good news.  Hamilton Ontario’s Interval House just received a substantial grant to work with local building trades unions to make construction safer and more welcoming for women.  And from Canadian Dimension we carried a call for a more gender-inclusive construction industry as a key component of a Just Transition.

As well, look for summaries of presentations by representatives of Canadian unions at the UN’s annual Commission on the Status of Women.  Some really thought-provoking high-level stuff there.  I particularly enjoyed a contribution by CUPE’s Kimalee Phillip.  Look for it.

LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from last June.  We usually work at finding photos of events no more than a week old but this one was too good to ignore. 

Back then the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain organized a protest by cleaners, security and catering staff against outsourcing and exploitative working conditions at University College London on student open day.  Their slogan?  “We clean your halls, you clean up your act.”

The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversary in 1960 of what’s come to be known as the Hogg’s Hollow Disaster.  Five Italian immigrant workers died in an underground tunnel at a watermain construction project in suburban Toronto. Their death drew public attention to the unsafe conditions in construction and the exploitation of immigrant workers.  It was the beginning of a profound transformation of workplace safety in the province and marked the rise of a new safety militancy amongst workers generally and construction union most especially.

That’s the past.  As for the future of Canadian unions, a fair bit depends on the renewal of the trade union bureaucracy, the staff who provide the support, administrative, technical and political, needed by rank-and-file members and national elected leadership alike. 

If you’re interested in seeing what jobs are out there, what unions are hiring and what sort of jobs are on offer, do check out our Union Jobs page.  A good proportion of the vacancies are Canadian and who knows, one of positions with a global union federation might catch your fancy.

This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.